I have the game since a long time but refrained playing it the past 4 months. I’m pretty sure I saw in the changelogs something about civilian ships at some time. Will they return? in a patch or the expansion?
They are in game, but in my opinion, right now, are pretty boring-useless.
I wanted to open a thread just to comment about that… in my opinion the civilian ships are one of the rare things that feel unfinished in the game
Not only their look is always the same and their sailing is… erm, quite erratic, but they seem pretty useless, unless a captain wants to play pirate and attack them. And yet they could have a lot of uses, from triggering random encounter events to trade to giving information on the map in exchange of echoes, etc.
On the one occasion that I engaged a civilian ship, my crew ended up getting all upset that I’d had a go, I think that something along the lines of a letter of marque to take prizes and a way of identifying which ships are falling under that letter (colour/flag perhaps) would be an excellent addition to the game.
I never saw a single one! How can it be?
PLEASE DO! There were a few threads in Early Access that touched upon the subject of piracy, but the flensing weapons still don’t do enough damage to enemy crew and from what I’ve tested seizing ships is downright impossible even now that the game is live!
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Yeah, civilian ships are a tad underwhelming even after their final implementation. I don’t see much in the way of shipping lanes…more like random NPC ships spawned whereever, going whereever. They seem quite rare too. I’d expect to see ship traffic outside of FL more regularly, but as it is the pirates are more frequent than NPCs.
It’d also be nice if monster and pirates would attack them rather than essentially ignoring them for you.
edited by Nenjin on 2/9/2015
I feel like they were a bit more common prior to release. Is this a mistaken impression, or can someone corroborate it?
I’d agree with that. They feel like they’ve been tuned back - they seemed much more common in Sapphire than they do now (of course, they were also blatantly misbehaving then! It’s been a while since I saw one twitching on an island until it could rev itself back out to zee).
In the current implementation there could be no more than six and they all are setted on a trade route. Basically, the idea is that you could follow them, have lesse terror and discover a new island… the problem is that they often teleport out of your sight! I want that damned quantic engine! :p
edited by Frenzgyn on 2/9/2015
Oh, is that what those blue steamers that keep getting caught in islands and just generally being goofy and useless are? Civilian ships? Oh, dear.
If FailBetter games chose to neglect them entirely I’d be none the wiser because they’re so rare and uninteresting. But if they did the work already to put them in the game for its release then I do imagine it couldn’t go terribly wrong to fix them.
I’m still waiting for them to put the Deconstruction in
Never saw one admittedly. Seems the feature is incomplete.
I’m pretty sure they got rid of that region (Also the sea of wings), considering now the chelonate and empire of hands are on the east edge instead when they werent originally
I think the sea of wings is still going in. After all, you can sell feathers in London, but where do you get the feathers from?
Besides, I’ve still got two big empty spots on the eastern edge (my empire of hands and chelonate are not close to the edge of the map at all) and they still say they are under construction. I live in hope.
edited by organicmcgee on 2/12/2015
IMO civilian ships need to be removed entirely. They add nothing and are incredibly glitchy I didn’t even see a single 1 until like 20 hours into my game. They should shelve the concept and create a DLC focused on expanding piracy further down the line. If they have plans for future DLC after the zubmarine one of course.
The Blue Prophets, I’d guessed. I’ve yet to see them spawn, but someone described them as angry bird of paradise, and "blue" is in their name.
edited by Fretling on 2/12/2015
I Could be a really nice idea! Of course if you don’t care a little modditin (editing a single number), you could get ride of them in a wink!
The Blue Prophets, I’d guessed. I’ve yet to see them spawn, but someone described them as angry bird of paradise, and "blue" is in their name.[/quote]
I see them occasionally around the Crying Heights… only happened with one captain, however.